Last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live, while plugging his new movie, THE INVENTION OF LYING, Ricky Gervais showed a drawing of the character designs for his upcoming HBO animated series (based on the podcasts he did with partner Stephen Merchant and bald Manc Karl Pilkington).
Ricky looks remarkably like Fred Flintstone.
Steve is tall.
And Karl still has a head that looks like a [censored] orange.
The show will apparently begin in the US in January.
Via PR:
VringoTM, the next-generation ringtone pioneer, and Marvel Entertainment have announced a collaboration to create and distribute mobile videos and video ringtones based on Marvel’s legendary library of Super Heroes. The project kicks off today with the U.S. launch of a storefront and Web-based editing platform (http://vringo.marvel.com) dedicated to letting fans purchase ready-made mobile clips and even create their own from the Marvel archives.
“It’s a press release cliché to say you’re excited, so I’ll just say that teaming with a world-class entertainment company like Marvel feels like waking up and discovering that you have adamantium-laced bones,” said Vringo CEO Jon Medved. “Marvel continues to break new ground in digital distribution, and we’re proud to work with them on developing the world’s first Super Hero video ringtone portal.”
At launch, the store features editable raw footage and pre-cut video ringtones from newer Marvel properties like the animated Wolverine & The X-Men, and classics like theme songs from the fan-favorite animated 1966 Marvel Super Heroes series, with new content coming each month. All Marvel fans with video-ready phones can use the store to view and send bite-sized Marvel videos to their devices. Fans with Vringo application-compatible phones can take it to the next level, turning their clips into video ringtones and taking advantage of Vringo’s VringForwardTM technology, which lets them choose which Super Hero (or villain) they want their friends to see when they call.
“With its studio tools and video ringtone application, Vringo has built one of the mobile industry’s most innovative and exciting consumer engagement platforms,” said John Dokes, Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Marvel Entertainment. “It’s a perfect match for our library of beloved characters.”
Fans can visit http://vringo.marvel.com to get their first mobile video free and additional clips will be priced at USD $1.99. The Vringo application is available for BlackBerry Bold, Symbian, Windows Mobile and J2ME devices, with support for additional platforms coming later this year.
Jamie Coville has now uploaded a ton of panels from Comic-Con, including many of our must-sees which we didn’t:
Secret Origins of Comic-Con. (61.8mb, 67:32)
Participants of the first and early San Diego Comic cons tell their stories of how it all began. Panelist include Richard Alf, Greg Bear, Dave Clark, Ken Krueger, Mike Towry, Scott Shaw!, Barry Alfonso, Roger Freedman, Ken Krueger, and moderated by William R. Lund. This panel gets cut off before it ends, due to a dead battery.
Indie Comics Marketing 101. (41.7mb, 45:33)
How to market your comics if you are not a big publisher. BOOM! Marketing director Chip Mosher, The Beat’s Heidi McDonald, and filling in for Shanon Wheeler is popular blogger and creator Kevin Church. Chip goes through the mindset and some rules on marketing yourself, Heidi and Kevin go through some do’s and don’ts on the press end. The panel is moderated by the former manager of development and content at MySpace, Sam Humphries.
Spotlight on Jerry Robinson. (41.8mb, 45:43)
Moderator Mark Waid interviews Jerry Robinson about his career in comics, particularly focusing on his early Batman days and his latest work as a guest curator for an exhibition on Superhero comic art.
Golden and Silver Age of Comics. (69.1mb, 75:31) Panelists include Murphy Anderson, Gene Colan, Ramona Fradon, Russ Heath, Jack Katz, Jerry Robinson and Leonard Starr. The group tells stories about their time in comics. The panel is moderated by Mark Evanier.
COMICSPRO: Selling More Comics and Graphic Novels: A Forum for Publishers. (54.9mb, 60:01)
Joe Field (ComicsPro President and Flying Colours owner), Phil Boyle (Coliseum of Comics chain owner) and Judd D’Angelo (Earth 2 chain co-owner) give instructions to publishers and creators on how to sell more comics.
Spotlight on Dwayne McDuffie. (45.8mb, 50:02)
Dwayne McDuffie receives an Inkpot Award and just does a straight Q&A with the audience. He answers questions about writing comics and animation. In particular, about Fantastic Four, Damage Control, Static Shock and the Milestone Universe, Justice League, Teen Titans and Ben 10.
2009 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. (154mb, 169:17)
The Black Panel. (74.1mb, 81:00)
Moderated by Michael Davis. This laugh out loud funny panel’s participants include Ludacris, Michael Jai White, Kel Mitchell, Prodigal Sunn, Jimmy Diggs, Reggie Hudlin, Denys Cowan, and surprise guest Nichelle Nichols. There was also a performance by singer Asia Lee, Queen of Cali. Artist Ken Lashley was in the crowd and stood up to participate towards the end. There was much promoting of upcoming projects and some Q&A from the audience.
Spotlight on Sheldon Moldoff. (42.4mb, 46:22)
Mark Waid interviews Sheldon Moldoff about his career, in particular about his time working on Batman. Moldoff also talks about the time he sued DC and won (but still continued to work for them) and his very bad experience with Bill Gaines. I should note I missed about the first 5 minutes of the panel.
Spotlight on Denis Kitchen. (94.5mb, 54:04)
Kevin Dooley gave a very long introduction to Denis Kitchen and also ran a quick moving power point showing lots of Kitchen’s underground art. They talked a bit about his career, what he’s doing now and took questions from the audience.
Comic-Con: El Cortez Memories. (45.6mb, 49:51) Moderated by David Scroggy, this panel includes many early comic con goers and they tell funny stories about the old El Cortez hotel the comic con used to be held in. On the panel was Sergio Aragonés, Mike Friedrich, George Clayton Johnston, Jack Katz, Lee Marrs, Mike Royer, William Stout, and Mark Evanier.
Harvey Kurtzman Tribute. (46.9mb, 51:14)
Panelists include Paul Levitz, Denis Kitchen, William Stout, Charles Kochman and Harvey’s daughter Nellie Kurtzman. Panel is moderated by Mark Evanier. The group talk about Harvey, his strengths and his career path in an open and honest way.
The Annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel. (51.9mb, 56:42)
Mark Evanier is the moderator. On the panel is Bill Mumy, Mike Royer, Steve Saffel, and the inspiration for the 5 String Mob from Jimmy Olsen comics, Barry Alfonso, Roger Freedman, William R. Lund, Scott Shaw! and Mike Towry. The panel talks about Jack, point out that several of the audience members also have Jack Kirby connections as well.
The other morning, we linked to a Variety report on the option of a yet-unpublished graphic novel called 7th SON. Writer J.C. Hutchins wrote in to explain that is not quite the origin of the source material:
I wanted to let you know that the Variety article you cited was inaccurate in stating that 7th Son was a graphic novel series. It was actually a free “podcast novel” series — free serialized audiobooks that I released in 2006-07. Each week, listeners would receive a new chapter of the audiobook, narrated by me. A pretty cool way to build a fan base, which helped seal the print novel deal for this fall, and the option/development deal with WB.
Hutchins also mentioned that his debut print novel, Personal Effects: Dark Art, has just been published, and he described it as a “transmedia novel:”
Accompanying each copy of the book are more than a dozen tangible “personal effects” items, such as IDs, photos, legal documents and credit cards. These items are referenced in the novel (presented a first-person quasi “case file” presentation) as evidence. When readers combine clues in the novel with clues in these tangible “personal effects,” they are propelled into a story-enhancing narrative told online, via phone and email.
Which certainly sounds immersive if nothing else. We’re not familiar with Hutchins work (yet) but it sounds as if he’s taking advantage of all the media opportunities available to explore new ways of storytelling.
If you have been missing Lost this last couple weeks, well, no new episodes, but this might tide you over for a day or so. The Helper Monkey was on wrestling historian Karl Stern’s podcast today to discuss the season finale, the show as a whole, the greatness of John Locke and Benjamin Linus, the not-so-greatness of Jack Shephard and more.
You can download it here.
Yet more podcasting from The Beat! Along with Jimmy and Joe of Comic News Insider, Ben McCool and Lenae McKee, we dissect the various versions of A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE as part of CNI’s VERSUS series. It was a lot of fun and quite an interesting discussion.
The Beat and Future Mr. Beat were guests on “Comic News Insider: Episode 194″.
The Beat’s own Heidi MacDonald joins us in studio along with up and coming writer Ben McCool for a lengthy and Twitteriffic show! After a tasty BBQ and many drinks, the gang sallies forth to record a show. Uh-oh. 4 chatty folks on beer and wine! Hang on! News includes Free Comic Book Day, Wolverine Nike’s and easter eggs, Sin City 2, Predators reboot, Twitter wars, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, get a part in Smallville and more! We get into a heated discussion about Twitter and the advantages/disadvantages of it all.
We definitely had a blast doing this show. Jimmy and Joe put on an entertaining, informative show and always know how to treat their guests well. We also taped another show on a different topic that I’ll plug when it goes live. Please take a listen!
We meant to comment on this piece by Lucas Siegel from Blog@Newsarama for days, but never got around to it; the title was “My Opinion Is Right: Comics Press is Crippled Like No Other Industry” but despite that bold statement, the offending incident came from Marvel’s very active staff Twitter community
There has been a bit of an uproar on Twitter in the last 24 hours, primarily instigated by three big names at Marvel Comics complaining about tweets, posts on the microblogging social network, being reposted on websites such as this one, CBR, and many others. The contention by Tom Brevoort, Brian Michael Bendis, and Joe Quesada is that this shouldn’t be done without permission or even payment to the person who made the original 140 character or less post.
This was really a tempest in a teapot — Joe Q, in particular complaining about people reposting his Tweets — let alone PAYING to do it — was odd, since he’s one of the most media-savvy comics personalities out there. It seems that the agita — if it wasn’t all a big put-on — on Marvel’s part was over Twitter aggregations like this gathering up CB Cebulski’s advice on how to break into comics.
Setting aside the fact that apparently Cebulski actually GAVE permission for Blog@ to collect his thoughts, the main thing it made US wonder was…why on earth would ANYONE post any information of any real value on Twitter?
As our colleague Calvin Reid observed to us the other night, Twitter is like a 24-hour rolling cocktail party. There really isn’t enough time in the day to read EVERY Twitter in your feed, and why would anyone want to? CB went to the trouble of typing out some very sound information on breaking in to comics — and then it rolled on. Back to CB’s daily culinary adventures, Wil Wheaton’s making dinner for his kids, Themediaisdying posting about some magazine closing, Wossy making a TV show, and a thousand complaints about computer problems.
Has Twitter crested yet, please God? Well, Techcrunch reports the dual assault of Ashton Kutcher and Oprah has overrun the levees:
Twitter’s march towards world domination continues apace. This morning comScore released its global numbers for March, 2009. Worldwide visitors to Twitter.com increased 95 percent in the month of March from 9.8 million to 19.1 million, according to its estimates. This compares to 9.3 million visitors in the U.S. alone.
What really amuses us is the Internet’s supposed “march of progress”. Six or seven years ago, when blogging was just getting started, we remember countless web articles on how you needed to blog to extend and market your brand. Now we are reading countless blogs about how to use Twitter to extend and market your brand. What’s next? We predict some kind of rolling symbol site — like in the Matrix — where folks just type in little pictures to say how they’re feeling — the bad news is that everyone will need a Chinese computer keyboard to participate.
And what’s a “brand” anyway? Is it the same thing as, gasp, content?
The Twitter fad is notable in that everyone PREDICTS it’s a fad and not a new means of communication, even while they’re trying to make use of this new means of communication. What really worries us is that so much on the web is far less lasting than that moldy, uninteractive print. In its own way the closing of GeoCities is a massive loss of information. If you want to see the Web as it existed ten years ago just find any webpage hosted on GeoCities. And yet, these were mostly pages written by people who were driven by passion. They were also trailblazers of web info, scanning and writing and posting information that has since been disseminated in Wikipedia and the other pro sites that come up whenever you Google anything. They were the frigging pioneers!
Yahoo is closing it GeoCities site this year.
Yahoo bought GeoCities for more than $2.9 billion in dot-com-priced stock in 1999, when GeoCities had more than 1.1 million users. However, while the idea of having a personal presence on the Internet has caught on, GeoCities turned out to be a backwater, not the mainstream.
“We will be closing GeoCities later this year,” Yahoo said in a note on the site. “We’ll provide more details about closing GeoCities and how to save your site data this summer.”
For perspective, Harry McCracken does a “Where are they now” for the top 15 websites and brands of April, 1999 and it’s not pretty.
And now, it looks like the entire publishing world might go the way of GeoCities.
(more…)
Indie Spinner Rack is back in the Podcast Arena with the official ISR t-shirt and the Awesome anthology available!
We will be recording interviews throughout the weekend, with games, giveways, and other fun mayhem going on!
Creators signing and sketching at the ISR booth. They have also threatened Karaoke! Signings in the jump:
Haven’t you always wanted to hear Lynda Barry talk to Alison Bechdel but thought that was a crazy dream that could never come true? Well, it HAS! It’s a talk taped at November’s WordStock Festival in Portland.
[Via Peggy Burns.]
If you’re looking for indie cartoonists at NYCC, the Indie Spinner Rack booth is as good as any to find ‘em!
We are premiering the first official ISR t-shirt and will have copies of the Awesome anthology available! We will be recording interviews throughout the weekend and will be raffling off a huge original sketch jam piece!
Creators signing and sketching at the ISR booth:
Friday:
3:30-5:30 - Dan Piraro (Bizarro)
3-7 - Mike Dawson (Freddie & Me)
3-7 - MK Reed (Papercutter, The Girls’ Guide to Guys’ Stuff)
Saturday:
10-1 - George Lavigne (Awesome anthology)
10-2 - Monica Gallagher (Gods & Undergrads, Boobage)
1-4 Liz Baillie (My Brain Hurts)
1-4 - Jamie Tanner (The Aviary)
4-7 - Julia Wertz (The Fart Party)
4-7 - Sarah Glidden (How to Understand Israel in Sixty Days or Less)
Sunday:
10-1- Fred Chao (Johnny Hiro)
10-1 - Nick Bertozzi (The Salon)
1-4 - Alec Longstreth (Phase 7, Papercutter)
1-4 - Salgood Sam (Therefore Repent)
4-7 - Jamie Tanner (The Aviary)
Be sure to stop by our booth for additional creator appearances
and for the scoop on the huge annoucement we’re making at the con!
The Comic Book Club folks are now PODCASTING. So you can now listen to the State of the Industry show with ourself, Brian Heater, Kiel Phegley, and John DiBello.
HEAR Dan Nadel interview Powr Mastrs auteur CF here. SEE Gary Panter, Brian Chippendale / Blak Pus and Paper Rad on the new PictureBox YouTube channel.
Blake Bell posts an mp3 of Gary Groth interviewing Todd McFarlane. We’re told it’s “classik” with a “k”.
Clickwheel has been around for a bit as the first company to attempt to take advantage of comics on the iPod. While it hasn’t been maing many headlines lately, it does have some recent updates in regards to the new generation of iPods:
In the wake of Apple’s new iPod line, Clickwheel, the site for creating and distributing comics to iPod and iPhone, is proud to unveil a brand new look as well as added features and content at Clickwheel.net, including community tools and exclusive online content featuring 2000AD’s flagship character, Judge Dredd.
The new Clickwheel front page features an updated look, a built-in player for viewing content on your computer and new features for registered users including: bookmarking tools that alert users when their favorite comics have been updated, a listing of the top ten downloaded features daily and those most recently updated and added, and rating and tagging tools to help both readers and creators enjoy and share their comics.
Among these comics are three pieces exclusive to Clickwheel. For users new to the concept of comics on the iPod we have part two of Colin White’s Comics on small Screens, a series exploring the possibilities of creating comics in this new medium. Clickwheel is also the exclusive home of a new series from the creators of the phenomenally popular webcomic, Brat-Halla called Random Encounters. True to its name, Random Encounters is an RPG/Fantasy driven comic packed with action and humor for fans of any genre. Both of these comics are available as iPod/iPhone formatted comics ready for download, or as PDFs that can be viewed on any PC or iPhone.
Even though THE BEAT and her helper monkey have been talking about Chris Benoit’s brain, that’s not the wrestling talk we have for you today.
As everyone knows, there are a multitude of similarities between the two popular culture whipping boys: brightly-colored outfits, supersized muscles, and so on.
Today, we shine a line on one of our favorite wrestling companies, CHIKARA PRO, and their love of comics. You may have seen them references on MTV recently, talking about wrestling and video games (CHIKARA has a Nintendo-loving garppler on their crew called Player Uno).
CHIKARA’S DVD releases have, for the last couple years, been homages to famous comic book covers. You undoubtedly recognize the originals that inspired these discs.
More after the break
(more…)
Via Colleen Coover the “Comics are not literature” panel from San Diego that was practically the only provocative one, as far as we can tell, is up. We haven’t listened yet, but it’s very high on our catch up list.
Image of Douglas Wolk, Dan Nadel, and Sara Ryan stolen from Coover. Who just got married this weekend to panelist on the above Paul Tobin so big congrats to the happy couple, and here’s a picture of that, taken by Paul Guinan.
Blake Bell is celebrating Hernandez Brothers week, and of course you don’t have to ask us twice to join in the fun. Bell is posting mp3’s of a 1989 interview of Gilbert Hernandez by Gary Groth and throwws in a few observations:
Interesting that, in part one, Gilbert name checks Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko as inspirations/influences. And it’s fantastic to see that Gilbert has the work ethic of both those creators. Every time I turn around, Gilbert’s producing new work that is consistently well drawn, with a unique narrative. His latest work is a mini-series for Dark Horse Comics entitled, The Devil You Know. Go here for a preview and “trailer” from the Dark Horse site. In an era where my favourite indie artists seem to produce a book a year, Gilbert also has another full-length graphic novel coming out from Fantagraphics called, Chance In Hell.
We praise Beto’s prolific nature! Praise him with great praise!
Hear the Beat blab! Hear Paul Pope, John Cassaday, Jimmy Palmiotti and John Lucas blab also! It’s all on the 100th episode of the Comic News Insider podcast which is now online.
Comic News Insider is your source for news, reviews and interviews on everything comic book, animation, sci-fi and pop culture! Sponsored by Dynamic Forces. Hosted by Jimmy Aquino and Joe Gonzalez, CNI is a NYC based weekly podcast that is both informative and entertaining. Jimmy and Joe review new weekly comics/movies/TV shows, deliver the latest industry news and share their Top 3 Picks of the Week. Episodes include guest interviews with the biggest names in the comic book industry today, as well as guest segments including Blair Butler from G4’s Attack of the Show. Tune in every Wednesday to get your comic book news and more.
Comics podcast Inkstuds has a mammoth three part interview with Kim Deitch.
We haven’t listened to it yet. But you should.
Who needs spending hours and hours writing deep thought when you can just blab? Cinematical’s James Rocchi interviews the Beat about movies, comics and comic-book movies.
For those of you that aren’t in SD, DC Comics is giving you a way to feel like you were there.
For at least the second year in a row, DC has podcasts available from some of the panels. There are shows from Thursday, Friday and Saturday offered.
You can find them at DC’s webpage or on iTunes.
If any other studios or publishers are doing them, let The Beat know and we’ll add them to the list.
Posted by Mark Coale
What’s up with the viral game tied into the Batman movie going on at the Con this afternoon?
It apparently started this morning with the Why So Serious website giving out coordinates this morning to a location right outside the convention center.
As of this writing (3:30 ET), the website says “Checkpoint 1″ and a cryptic message scrawled across the page:
Ready to play a joke? Tell your stooges on the ground to look up. They’ll tell you what to do next.
There’s also a place to apparently enter a password. No word on what that is yet.
According to Rich Johnston, it all ends up leading to the new DARK KNIGHT trailer, the one that was up on You Tube yesterday and can be seen in front of THE SIMPSONS movie.
the trailer is back up on You Tube.
edit: Here’s the screen as of now (5:00 ET). The police report (when clicked) talks about a dead “Joker” who was found in an abandoned van (from this morning?) and holding something that said “See you in December.” The small pixel on the right takes you to the trailer.
Posted by Mark Coale
For nerds not in San Diego, the biggest news of the week is probably the release of the Simpsons movie. But, maybe more important than that is what you can see before the movie: the trailer for THE DARK KNIGHT movie.
Of course, it’s 2007, so someone who saw a preview has already put it up on You Tube.
Edit: The clip is down. If another link shows up, we’ll add it. The official trailer will likely be up Friday.
Posted by Mark Coale
You are currently browsing the archives for the Podcasts and other media category.